The words “we never ought to have come here” alarmed me. What if when I returned I should find them gone? Oh, but—that wouldn’t bear thinking of. So I did my best to reassure her, and to all appearances succeeded. Yet if I had known then—or had the faintest inkling of—what I afterwards knew—Well when I did it was too late.
Chapter Fourteen.
A Bad Beginning.
We crossed Umzinyati above where the Blood River joins it. This was something of a round but I didn’t want to pass through Sirayo’s section of the country; for it so happened I had had a bit of a breeze with him on a former occasion, and he would remember it; moreover his clan were a troublesome lot, and likely enough wouldn’t stick at trifles—not the salt of Zululand by any means. So I elected to make a few days of easy trek outside the border, and then cross over into Zululand a good deal further north.
Old transport-riders will tell you there is no life so fascinating as that of the road. With all its hardships and drawbacks—drought, wet, waterless out-spans, mudholes into which wheels sink axle deep, bad and flooded drifts, involving hours of labour, and perhaps the borrowing of a brother trekker’s friendly span—heat, cold—everything—yet the sense of being on the move, the constant change of scene, even of climate—has a charm all its own. This I can quite believe—because the waggon life off the road is even more fascinating still, in that the drawbacks are fewer, and you are more independent. You trek or outspan at your own sweet will, undeterred by any misgivings as to goods being delayed an inordinate time in delivery and the potential loss of future commissions in consequence. And you have time and opportunity to indulge in sport if there is any to be had, and there generally is when you are right off the roads, unless the country carries too thick a population.
These advantages held good of our then trek. I had a first-rate tent waggon of which mention has already been made. This, besides its load of the lighter kinds of trade goods was fitted up with a kartel and mattress, for bad weather accommodation—in fine weather we preferred sleeping on the ground. For the heavier kind, blankets and Salampore cloth, pots and kettles and so forth, I had loaded up a buckwaggon, constructed to carry anything up to twelve or fourteen thousand pounds weight. Thus we travelled—carrying our home along with us.
A surprise had come upon me almost at the last moment, and that was that by no possibility could I get any natives in our neighbourhood to cross the Zulu border. Those who had at first engaged to cried off. If I had been trekking with only one waggon I could have cut the knot of the difficulty by driving it myself, and making my body servant Tom—who would have gone to the ends of the earth with me, and to the devil after that—act as leader, but I had two. Ivondwe I knew would have gone, but I could not think of taking him away from the Sewins. The thing became seriously annoying. I appealed to Tyingoza. What was the matter with all the people? Were they afraid, and, if so, what of?
He was rather mysterious. There were rumours around that the Zulus were not well disposed towards white people, he hinted, especially those away on the northern border, where the King’s authority was least strong. That being so those in the position of white men’s servants would undergo risk—grave risk. But he would see what he could do, and in the result he found me one man who understood driving. This man, whose name was Mfutela, came from a kraal not far from Maritzburg. He was a ringed man, and brought with him his son, a youngster of about fifteen, to do leader. That would do. Things were brightening so far. I could drive one of the waggons myself, until such time as I had taught Falkner Sewin enough of the art to enable him to relieve me, and having thus decided I was all ready to start when—another turned up.